A Pacisfist in the Wasteland – Introduction

[Image via Digital Battle]

The original Fallout is my favourite game ever, mainly because it allows you to play it in many different ways. It doesn’t just give you the option to be a stealthy thief, it lets you be a stealthy thief with a drug dependency and a kamikaze attitude. Or you could be a highly educated stylish and charismatic thief or obviously not a thief at all. The point is Fallout is a game where you can be almost anyone.

But the question is can you be a pacifist? Can you get through the whole game without killing a single soul? Well, let’s find out.

First off some ground rules.

1.) For the sake of argument we’ll assume the character’s pacifism comes from cowardice more than morality. That’s to say he has no moral problem with killing he just can’t bring himself to do it. Don’t take this in anyway as me saying pacifists are cowards just assume that this one is okay?

2.) No backsies, by which I mean no reloading previous save games unless the character died or I’ve got myself stuck. Even if I screw up big, if I think I can still complete the game I need to keep playing. This is more for your enjoyment than anything else, it would be dull to read about everything going according to plan.

3.) Fallout is turn based and there’s a slight exploit where if you begin combat before the enemy does you get a free round. If you don’t attack the enemy after your turn ends, the combat ends, if you then hit attack again you’ll get another free round. It’s handy to use if you are trying to avoid a fight for whatever reason. I won’t use it cause it’s technically cheating and would defeat the purpose of this experiment. Unfortunately you’ll just have to take my word on this.

Alright with that out of the way here is the character sheet.

For traits I picked Gifted, because it’s a bit of a no brainer the way it massively increases your attributes, and Good Natured because it gives a bonus to a bunch of non-combat skills which for this character is also a no brainer.

I’ve pushed the Agility, Intelligence, Charisma and Luck attributes fairly high because I’m quite sure I’m going to need those. I haven’t gimped my strength and perception too much because in Fallout every attribute is quite important, no matter what character you’re building.

For skills I’ve tagged Sneak and Lockpick because I’m probably going to need to be able to slip into places unseen and Speech so I can at least try and talk my way out of trouble when things go wrong.

And with that it looks like we’re ready to roll.

Next: Rats, Vaults and Shady Sands